We are proud to announce the publication of the first issue of the paper of the International Marxist Tendency in Ireland – the Marxist Voice! This is a landmark moment for the building of the Marxist tendency in Ireland.
With articles on Marxist economics, the housing and healthcare crises, Republicanism and revolution, climate change and international events – the first issue of the Marxist Voice tackles the most pressing problems facing youth and workers in Ireland today.
As stated in our editorial (see below): “Half measures are not enough. In order to put an end to poverty, homelessness and misery; as well as sectarianism, racist division and partition, it is necessary to unite the working class for the complete revolutionary overthrow of capitalism across Ireland.”
The purpose of this magazine is to raise a Marxist Voice in Ireland, and with this voice to reach the ear of broader and broader layers of the workers and youth, until the revolutionary ideas of Marxism become the guiding ideas across the labour movement, and a decisive force capable of changing history, here and across the world.
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Join us and help spread the Marxist Voice in every workplace, school and campus around Ireland. Join the Irish Marxists today to fight for a 32-county Socialist United Ireland, and for world revolution!
Editorial of issue 1 of Marxist Voice
Global capitalism is on very shaky ground. It staggers from one crisis to the next with no end in sight. The whole capitalist system continues to inflict ever heavier deprivations on the masses, offering only more austerity, unemployment, collapsing healthcare systems, mass homelessness, inflation, climate destruction and war. The ruling class sees no way out.
Having exhausted previous methods for stabilising the economy, with debt piled higher than ever, the global capitalist order will be thrown into complete disarray in the coming period. Trade disputes and political conflicts in the so-called western alliance will become more acute as the global economy plunges into a severe recession after a meagre two year ‘recovery’ from the COVID crash.
The increasing tension of capitalist disintegration threatens to unwind the fabric of globalisation. The relative decline of US imperialism is creating a world fraught with increased imperialist rivalry and conflict. The Ukraine war is a symptomatic expression of this deep crisis, and it is in turn pouring petrol on the flames of all the other crises: inflation and cost of living crisis, energy crises, diplomatic crises. All are coming together in what the strategists of capital now call a ‘polycrisis’.
The Ukraine war and the resulting economic sanctions are weighing heavily upon German industry, threatening to shut down large sectors of the economy. Though the EU and the US maintain publicly that they are both acting in lockstep with one another on trade and support for the war, the cracks are beginning to show. The dispute between Britain and the EU over Brexit is far from resolved. With the inmates now running the asylum, the Brexiteers steering the Tory party refuse to concede any ground with the EU. The question of the border and the historic crime of partition, covered up for decades with the Good Friday Agreement sticking plaster, has thus been thrust to the fore once more.
These factors place Irish capitalism in an extremely precarious position, being as reliant as it is on US, British and European capital investment. To see how vulnerable Irish capitalism is to international headwinds, we need only look at how the crisis in the tech industry internationally, which has already led to thousands of layoffs in Ireland. As fallout grows from the conflict between the imperialist powers, the effects will be profoundly felt in Ireland, with the reemergence of the national question and of class struggle.
Already, the ground is being prepared for a period of intense class struggle in Ireland. Every pillar of the establishment is discredited to an unheard of degree. The ruling parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are in the midst of a truly historic demise as was made clearly evident in the 2020 general election, having achieved just 45 percent of the vote. The swing to Sinn Féin was the means by which the Irish working class expressed its outrage in that election at years of attacks by the ruling class on social services, working conditions, wages, the depth of the housing crisis and the collapsing health system.
The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election delivered a blow to the union with Sinn Fein having emerged as the first party. This elevated hopes that Irish unification might be round the corner, but the institutions themselves in the North have utterly failed and are once more closed. But unification of Ireland on a capitalist basis is a utopian dream, and Sinn Féin’s policies of tinkering with capitalism will not solve any of the fundamental problems facing the working class North or South.
Half measures are not enough. In order to put an end to poverty, homelessness and misery; as well as sectarianism, racist division and partition, it is necessary to unite the working class for the complete revolutionary overthrow of capitalism across Ireland. 2023 is guaranteed to be replete with ever greater crises and turmoil for capitalism. Wide layers of the working class and youth are drawing ever-more radical conclusions. Revolutionary movements shook the world in 2022: from Sri Lanka to Iran. The same processes are preparing similar explosions everywhere, including in Ireland. The situation requires a revolutionary political leadership based upon the correct ideas – the ideas of Marxism – that is capable of leading the overthrow of the system entirely through socialist evolution. That is the purpose of this magazine: to raise a Marxist Voice in Ireland, and with this voice to reach the ear of broader and broader layers of the workers and youth, until the revolutionary ideas of Marxism become the guiding ideas across the labour movement, and a decisive force capable of changing history, here and across the world.
Capitalism is driving us down the road towards barbarism. We must instead take the road that leads to the overthrow of this system and towards socialism.
Join the Irish Marxists to fight for a Socialist United Ireland and for world revolution!